Monday, November 29, 2010

EAA

EAA news

As many of you are aware, Erastes has announced that she will step down as the director of EAA (Erotica Authors Association). During her tenure, she guided the EAA to a revitalized group with active social network blogs and increased membership. We owe her a big thanks for all her work.




Many of you helped to launch the new efforts, and are actively involved in maintaining those blogs. A big thanks to you too.



With the blessing of Marilyn Jaye Lewis, the founder of EAA, and Erastes, I've decided to step into the director's role. With so much going on, I'm not sure who is involved with what functions, so please contact me offlist to let me know how you contribute and if you plan to continue (please do!).



My immediate plan is to continue to offer members information for submissions and give us a place to announce our book releases, so that aspect will not change. However, I'm also working on an erotica writers convention to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada in August of 2011. Let me know how you feel about that, and be sure to send ideas my way!



I look forward to continuing what Marilyn and Erastes have worked so hard to build.



Thank you!

Saturday, November 27, 2010

*Slides in home base head first*

And, I'm done!

Now on to all that other stuff I have to do.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

No NaNo

I saw the date and realized I had a review due on Best Bondage Erotica 2011 YESTERDAY, so decided I better read it instead of writing tonight.

Helen Lay Bound by Suzanne V Slate (I don't recognize the name, but plan to look for further work of hers) was amazing. Lesbian, gender queer, and lusciously literate. 

Okay, I've written the next line of this blog seven times and have had to delete it every time on the Thumper Principal. So you if want to see me being irritated with a certain BDSM story trope, email me privately, and I'll get seriously vicious about it just for your entertainment.


It's late, and I have miles of kink to read before I rest. 'night.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Almost there

My NaNoWriMo word count is a little over 42,000.

I wrote to the end of the story and am now filling in those scenes that,at the time, I couldn't get interested in, so I just wrote enough to sketch it out. Between that and a couple scenes that I need to add, I think I can wrap this up this weekend.

It's been an interesting experience, but I'm not sure that I'll do it again. I have so many other projects with deadlines zooming at me that I can't wait to make the minimum word count and then set this story aside for a while. First drafts of novels need to sit for a couple months before being tackled again anyway.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Oh, My Aching Fingers!

NaNoWriMo word count is 32,609.

What have I learned so far? I've talked about some stuff on earlier posts, so these are just the new revelations:

1) Mind over matter doesn't work with arthritis. I've had pain in my fingers since I was in third grade. Some days it's just this background thing that I can ignore. Other days, it feels as if someone took a hammer to every joint. On any day, I have to be careful not to do too much hand-intensive work or I get to the point where I can't hold anything. So writing every day is thrashing my hands. The impact of typing has made every finger sore in the top knuckle. Must remember to take anti-inflammatory meds before I go to bed or the pangs will keep me awake for hours. (BTW - in addition to the NaNOWriMo word count, I have my weekly article on Oh Get a Grip which runs 1000 words on average, my blog entries here, and I finished two 4000+ word short stories, so my word output for the month is higher than the NaNo count)

2) I can write every day, "inspired" or not. I think that this is the real lesson behind NaNoWriMo. Buckle down and just write! However, there's a huge difference between my output on days that I'm really into it and days that I'm not, so from an artistic standpoint, it would be better to take off those uninspired days.

3) I think another lesson of NaNoWriMo, although possibly unintended, is to show people how very difficult it is to write a novel. Nothing kills the love for a story like having to write every damn word of it.
 
4) The outline is still working for me, but I skipped about eight scenes when I realized they weren't needed, moved others, and merged a few more. The setting of the ending scenes is going to change, because it made no sense to make all the characters go somewhere they hadn't been before to wrap things up, but the basic ending remains.


5) Research is seductive. It's so fun to spend time looking at ancient paintings of Chinese junks to see if they had a crow's nest, or reading about southeast Asian traditions for warding against ghosts. I love that part of writing. It's a huge time suck though, so if I can't think of a name for a mountain range, I put _ Mountains in the MS. If I don't know a funeral custom, I type ___research funeral custom__ in the sentence and just keep going. On the good side of it, I have tons of research to look forward to on the rewrite.

With 17,301 words to go, I can see that I'm nearing the climax too soon. That's not a problem. I'll write through to the end, then add a few scenes toward the beginning that I know that I need, and I'll clean up some of the scenes I wrote on uninspired days. They aren't hard to find. They're almost entirely dialog. Adding setting and beats could easily take me over the top of 50,000.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Sweet!

New review of Passion, and they mentioned my story!

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Update

My NaNoWriMo word count is 19945. I could have dashed off another 55 tonight to round it up to 20,000, but I was at the end of a scene and I'm tried. It seemed like a good place to stop. Besides, then I'll have the thrill (?!) of passing 20,000 as I work on it tomorrow.


So what have I learned so far? I know that the motto of NaNoWriMo is "No plot, no problem," but if I had gone into this without my outline, I'd have a couple thousand words at most. I never, ever thought I'd embrace the idea of an outline, but it's working very well for me. Every time I sit down to write, I know what scene I'll be working on and what needs to happen in it. Like most writers, I'm a master at procrastination, but with this outline, I can't fritter away my writing time. So it's efficient, and I still have plenty of space to be creative.

The other thing I've learned is how to keep forward momentum. I'm not editing or rewriting anything. Everything has to be new word count. So I'm saving all that for after I finish the first draft. Sure, it drives me nuts as there are things I'm itching to fix, but I'm moving ahead at a brisk pace. I also have to write every day. I had two low word count days when I worked on short stories that had to be submitted this month, but I at least manged 352 words one day and over 500 the next on my NaNoWriMo novel, so I got to update my total a bit. The discipline involved is good practice.


(oh, and I can't add this blog entry word count to my total. bummer)

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

NaNoWriMo update

In case you're following, my word count stand at 16680 tonight. I only wrote 350 words tonight, but I spent my evening working on a short story due in a couple days, so I'm fine with that.

In other news, I got word that I'm in Carnal Machines, an erotic steampunk anthology, with my story In The Lair of the Red Countess.  Yay!

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Day 3 of the Forced Death March

It's too early to call NaNoWriMo a forced death march, but it sounded good as a title.

First day, I wrote 2023 words. The second day, I hit around 4500 (total). My three day total is 6844 words.

But much more interesting (to me) is how this whole outline experiment is going. If you've been following along thus far, you know that NaNoWriMo veterans warned me not to go into this unprepared, so I prepared using the snowflake method.  What that gave me is a fairly detailed outline to work from. I thought I would hate it. I thought it would kill creativity. I thought I'd get tired of the predetermined arc and chafe until I ignored it and went off on my merry way.

Day 3 is way early to make any definite judgments about it, but so far, I have to say that the outline thing works for me. I know which two scenes I'll write tomorrow. I know which characters are in it and generally what will happen, so I won't waste time staring at the screen as I wonder what will happen next because I already did that at the outline stage. It doesn't feel any less creative.

I know that people hate NaNoWriMo because it seems to value quantity over quality, but I think that the quantity  is a way to measure writer's discipline.  Pro writers have to create even when they aren't in the mood. NaNoWriMo demands the same thing. Besides, anyone who thinks first drafts are readable hasn't figured out the greatest writer's secret, ever, and that's how to embrace the sucky first draft. NoNoWriMo tells you to stop editing and just write. Finish the first draft. THEN edit it. Let yourself write poorly in the first draft. Rewrites are where true writers are made. So NaNoWriMo is all about embracing the sucky first draft, and I can totally get behind that.